During our Four Bows worship series, our liturgist followed the Scripture reading each week with a short writing called, “Would You Bow?” Several of you asked for copies. Given that one request often reflects the desires of many, I’ve reproduced it below. Others wondered who wrote the piece, since no attribution was given in the bulletin. I meant no disrespect to the author by leaving the name off. I am the author!

I wrote “Would You Bow?” several years ago after regularly joining the Muslim community for their weekly Jumu’ah gatherings on the Tri-Faith Commons. Central to these gatherings is the Salat — the formal ritual prayer practiced five times daily in Islam. The prayer involves a series of embodied movements: standing, bowing, kneeling, prostrating, and sitting.

For reasons I still cannot entirely explain, I found myself drawn to the Salat like a moth to flame. Partly, it was the prayer’s embodied nature that moved me. How refreshing to physically embody something inward and spiritual — something almost entirely absent from Protestant worship. Shoes removed at the door, rows of worshipers moving together in reverence, foreheads pressed to the carpet in surrender — the entire experience carried a profound sense of humility, trust, and devotion.

What moved me most deeply, however, was hearing the Imam chant as we bowed together:
Allahu Akbar…
God is great.

Yet what stirred in me was not merely the greatness of God, but the question beneath the words:
Which God?
What kind of God is truly worthy of surrender? What vision of the Holy is loving enough, trustworthy enough, beautiful enough, to bow before with one’s whole being?

“Would You Bow?” was written in response to that question. The God named in the words below is the kind of God I find myself willing to bow before.

How about you?

Grace and Peace,
Eric Elnes

Would you bow?

If you knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt,
that the real God loves you
far more deeply than you can comprehend,
believes in you
far more deeply than you believe in yourself,
and loves all others in the very same way,
would you bow before this God?

If you knew that this God — the real God —
holds no burning anger toward you for your shortcomings,
or toward anyone else for theirs,
but stands with us like a faithful friend,
steadfast in love,
always beckoning us toward
the fullest and truest version of ourselves,
would you bow before this God?
Would you place your life in this God’s hands?

If so, why not turn,
even now,
from those other gods
that keep demanding your loyalty,
and try it?

Why not say to God:

If this is who you really are,
then I am yours.
And if you guide me,
I will follow.